Exporting and re-importing version data during a refresh of the development system

Yes, it is possible. SAP note 130906 describes a method for exporting and re-importing the version data during a refresh of the development system. The note clearly states that the practice does not correspond to the system maintenance strategy of SAP and is therefore not recommended.

You should take the following prerequisites into account.

Prerequisites and restrictions:

• Prior to the refresh, all change requests that exist in the development system must be imported into the production system or they must be deleted. The reason is that the version management refers to change request number. If you restore version tables containing references to change requests that no longer exist, problems may occur.

• The version data of the source system is completely lost. If there were differences between the two systems (e.g., repairs to SAP objects) then all record of these will disappear. To avoid conflicts because of this the source and target system should be at the same support package level (the note does not mention this, but the requirement seems obvious). Furthermore, the source (e.g., production) system should not contain any repairs that were not also applied in the development system.

• As an extra precaution -- not mentioned in the note -- it might be wise to export the version tables of the source system before the import of the version data from the old development system.

• After the refresh, check and if necessary change the transport number range in E070L.